Live reporting: Modi promises new tax system, no word about abolishing Income Tax

New Delhi: BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday promises yoga guru Swami Ramdev a new "reformed' taxation system if his party came to power at the Centre. Ramdev had been pitching for complete

New Delhi: BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday promises yoga guru Swami Ramdev a new "reformed' taxation system if his party came to power at the Centre.

Ramdev had been pitching for complete abolition of Income Tax and Sales Tax and imposition of Banking Transaction Tax, which he claims will garner more revenue for the Centre.

Addressing a gathering of Swami Ramdev's supporters at Delhi's Talkatora stadium, Modi did not outrightly promise abolition of Income Tax and Service Tax, but said the present taxation system was a burden on the common man, and there was a need to reform it and introduction of a new system.

"It is the need of the hour", said Modi. Former BJP president Nitin Gadkari had last month said he was thinking of incorporating a proposal to abolish, income, sales tax and excise in the party's vision document, a point quickly taken up by Swami Ramdev.

Modi today did not promise Ramdev he would declare all ill-gotten money stashed away in foreign banks as 'national asset' and preferred to keep the cards close to his chest.

Gadkari is heading the BJP team that is preparing the vision document for the general elections.

Ramdev had also said that once Modi succeeds in coming to power, he should also declare the black money being held by Indians in foreign banks to be national wealth and bring it back and also set up a National Farmer Income Commission.

Modi as well as BJP President Rajnath Singh and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley expressed support for the proposals saying the party would examine them in all seriousness.

"The expectation and hope, which Baba Ramdev has put in the BJP and me personally, we will try our best to live up to that...

"My party leaders and experts have recently met and considered the issue for over three hours. Some problems may appear at first sight but we will have a look at it and find new solutions," he said.